Penny for your Thoughts, Quarter for your Reality
by Aquila-de-Sakura
Summary: A plot-bunny tasting disguised as a fic.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own House, M.D. I don't even own _a_ house.

WARNING! Do not attempt to adjust your browser. Do not attempt to get your eyes checked. All efforts will be futile and vain as there is nothing wrong with your perception and oculars (that we could be responsible for).  
What you may see may not make sense, it may not have meaning. You have been warned.  
What you are about to see is a journal. A journal which contains a journey. A journey of the mind in the dimention known only as House's Head.

* * *

Every time House blinked his eyes it seemed as if he was in another 'world'; sometimes even, a whole other "reality."

It all began after a normal day at work, at least what used to be normal for him. As soon as he came home to his apartment however; he was surprised see Wilson sitting at a poker table in his living room. He is wearing that oh so familiar McGill College sweatshirt as he glared at him, waiting for him to take his turn. Confused, House took a seat and decided to just humor whatever was going on.

The two played in silence until eventually, House got a hand of completely blank cards. He stared up at Wilson who continued to glare at him, and he eventually played his own hand. House looked at the five cards he played, one had a leg on it, the next had a gun, then a picture of prescriptions, a pocket knife, and the final had a bus.

---

House blinked his eyes again and was no longer in his living room. His face was mere centimeters away from a blade of some sort of long weapon. Suddenly, his body reflexively blocked the incoming blade with a small dagger. Jolts of pain shot through his leg and he was unable to move. Fortunately, the bearer of the long weapon withdrew her blade and stared down at him with a smirk.

"You've gotten rusty House."

---

The next thing House saw were fish. He also noticed that the dull agonizing pain in his leg had become a sharp fresh pain, an improvement he was suspicious of. It was as if he had suffered a recent injury, instead of the chronic burden he had been harboring for the past ten years. He looked back out at the fish and, at first, thought the change in pain might have been due to being submerged in the ocean. However, he realized that the school of aquatic creatures where behind a glass, and as he moved away from the glass he left a huge stain of blood where his leg was once leaning.

House failed to find his balance and rapidly made his aquaintance with the wall parallel to the window facing the schools of aquatic creatures. As a loud 'thump!' echoed through the hallways House looked up and noticed the condition of where he was. There were wires hanging down from the ceiling or being sprawled out on the ground, flashing every few seconds from incomplete circuits; broken glass and debris everywhere in a haphazrd fashion; various broken floursent lights halfway hanging down; small puddles of water as results of random leaks, and cracked pipes strewn about. The only light seemed to becoming from the glass separating him from the ocean. Suddenly, his injury was no longer a mystery to him, at least, not a very exciting one. As he attempted to find his bearings a strong arm arrived to support him. Reflexively, House drew away from the figure and realized that his helper was Kutner.

"Are you ok? Can you walk?" Kutner asked in an inquiring tone, one that said he wanted to know, but also had more important things on his mind.

"What are you doing here?" House of course, had no idea where 'here' was, but he would rather go outside with the fish than appear vunerable to his former employee.

Kutner ran his hand over the top of his head in an act of distraction from his thoughts, but it failed to calm him. The simple action made House realize that he had some superficial scratches and dried blood over his features, which proved that the situation was certainly more critical than he could deny. "I'm looking for survivors. I think the oxygen system imploded on itself."

House rolled his eyes at the seemingly exaggerated theory, "Then how are we breathing right now, idiot."

Kutner shrugged, "A...back up system?"

House mulled over the theory for a moment as a dark thought mysteriously came to him, "You better hope that's not what happened."

"Why?"

House stared at him grimly as he closed his eyes and sunk down against the wall, "Because that means we only have a couple of days to get out of here or we're going to suffocate and die."

---

The next setting House found himself in was quite the opposite of the submerged, destroyed ocean base. This time House was met with dry desert air and a land that seemed barren of water. He squinted as he stared at the sunrise and as he did he noticed the faint outline of a person running towards him.

The figure drew closer and as she approached she unwrapped the various cloths around her head and face. All-so-familiar black curls started leaking out and the stranger's azure eyes shown with the adrenaline of the night. She panted in accomplishment as she looked up at House. "What are you doing up?"

"Making sure certain thieves don't rob me blind."

Cuddy's face drew close to his, he could feel her breaths on his lips. "You have nothing worth my efforts anyway."

They began drawing closer and closer until House made the mistaken of closing his eyes in the heat of the moment.

---

House's eyes flew open just as he realized what he was doing and the next thing he saw was a mountain side covered with sheep. He sighed in frustration as he dug the now-shepherd staff in his hand into the ground.

Some of the sheep noticed their master's frustration and turned to look at him and, as they did, House noticed some interesting characteristics about them.

One of the few black sheep of the bunch tried moving away from him in such a manner that it was only bringing him closer to him.

Another one of the sheep who was covered in various black patches on her wool, was trying to escape from the herd; tripping and stumbling on various twigs and twine.

Two of the young sheep were off on their own. The ewe seemed to be in heat, much to the displeasure of the young ram.

The curious one of the bunch tried going off to explore, but wasn't getting very far. He then ran over to another one of the rams who was trying to eat by himself on what he believed was the freshest part of the grass. The curious one was an extremely affectionate ram as a contrast to his grim friend.

The one who seemed to be the leader of the flock was the only one that actually approached House and kept 'baa'-ing at him for some reason how couldn't comprehend.

House was beginning to get a headache from all the reality switching and limped over to sit down under one of the few trees that provided shade. Just as he closed his eyes he heard a voice calling out from the small cottage behind him.

"House! You ate my breakfast didn't you!"

---

It was harder for House to open his eyes in the next reality he was subjected to for his eyelids felt heavy as did the rest of his body. He struggled to get out of his bed as his mind attempted to figure out what the cause of his sudden fatigue was. Suddenly, he heard a door creaking open and a bright light flickered on, revealing a heavily-padded room.

_"Narcotics."_ House realized as an orderly stood in the doorway trying to convey a message to him.

"You have a visitor."

The orderly stepped back as a formally-dressed Wilson cautiously stepped into the room. "It's been a long time."

House could only stare as he felt the drugs running through his system, sapping him of any will of his own. Wilson returned his stare with a sad one as he walked closer trying not to cry.

"I'm...really glad you've...come back. I've been waiting for you for a long time." Wilson was fumbling with his words and looking around the room, trying not to flinch at the atmosphere. "It's...It's been so long since you've been lucid and..."

House struggled to keep his gaze on Wilson, but he felt his eyelids shutting. His mouth hung open in naked confusion.

"I love you...too."

---

House "awoke" in the familiar setting that was his diagnostics department. It was a sight for sore eyes after everything he had just experienced. However, he found himself sitting at the table across from the whiteboard, a seat he wasn't used to, and he was greeted by the new sight of Wilson preparing coffee and Cuddy doning her reading glasses and a case file. Before House could ask what was going on, he heard the glass door open and a voice bellowing out, "50-year-old male experiencing blackouts and disconnections with reality. Differential diagnosis, go."

As Wilson and Cuddy listed off various probable diagnosises House watched as a slightly older, but still the same blond-haired austrailian doctor he was accustomed to, strode in with a walking stick that seemed to be a personal characteristic.

Chase took out a marker and began writing on the board while still balancing on his cane. He shot down Wilson and Cuddy's suggestions and then turned to glare at House. "Don't you have anything to contribute today House? Or are you just resigning to your idiocy early? Saves me the trouble of shooting you down, but still makes me have to fill out your pink slip. Either way it's a lose/lose situation for me, but at least one option allows you to keep your job."

House scowled at this role-reversal reality, but had to admit he was mildly intreged. "Brain tumor combined with a latent family history of schizophrenia," he answered smugly.

Chase thought about his idea for a moment and resigned to it. "Cuddy, go get a CT-scan. Wilson, go schedule a biopsy with Cameron, and by that I don't mean taking her out to lunch and shagging her in her office. Woo her all you want _after_ the patient in healed."

Wilson rolled his eyes and he and Cuddy headed out the door. House lagged behind as he waited for Chase's instructions.

"You, go search the home."

"Wow. You're actually sending _me_ on that assignment?"

"I have to prove to Foreman you're not as much of a liability as he wants to believe. As if he's never been arrested before." Chase shook his head, "Just don't get caught watching the patient's pay-per-view."

"_That_ could have been diagnostically relevant!"

"Just don't get caught this time."

House allowed himself a rare moment to smile as he headed out the door and was swallowed by the blinding light of another realm of existance.

---

He was sure the next world he perceived was proof that his mind was breaking down and that he was losing it when he found himself in the diagnostics office again. Fortunately he was seated at his own desk with his coffee in his own red mug so he thought the proper roles were restored once again.

He looked over at the conference room of the office and saw that it was empty, assuming that his team was off running tests or answering code-blue pages. The balcony door then swung open interrupting his thoughts. House looked over at the door expecting Wilson, but was surprised when he found a taller, darker haired gentleman standing in his office instead.

House squinted his eyes, "...Wyatt?"

'Gordon' Wyatt returned his confused gaze with one of his own, but it was more of surprise than pure disbelief. "Hugh-"

"CUT!" A loud shout echoed into the room. It was then that House realized the presence of a huge black camera in his office, just inches away from his face.

"What the hell?!" House yelled from his seat, "What is that 'thing' doing in my face?!"

The director emerged from his seat in the shadows to see what was going on. "Something wrong Mr. House?"

"I want to know that the hell you did to my office!"

"Well, we changed the lighting because we got new funding and got new props, but it's nothing too dire. Not like the majority of the watchers will notice save for the crazy obsessed ones with the blogs."

House just continued glaring.

'Wyatt' walked up to them, "Is something the matter Greg?"

House turned to him, "And what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in years!"

'Wyatt' shrugged, "This is my obigatory scene for the latest product of our dear writers' minds." He then moved over to House and reached out to feel his forehead, "But you just saw me last week! Are you feeling alright? Did you forget your lines? That's a first. Need to borrow my script?"

House shoo'd his hand away as 'Wyatt' smiled jokingly. "Leave me alone."

"Take five everybody." The director waved his arms at the surrounding crew and they put down their tasks and fled for the snack table. He then turned to House, "Go get some water or something House, there's a big epiphany scene later. I smell emmys!" He then left 'Wyatt' and House alone.

'Wyatt' put his hand on House's shoulder, "If winning awards for 'best drama' or whatever it is didn't require actors he'd drop us in a heartbeat."

"Forget him, I'm the one that carries this show."

'Wyatt' laughed, "As orgulous as ever I see, quite the opposite of Hugh."

"Hugh?"

"Your fictious representation in the art of public broadcasting."

"Oh right, I knew that."

'Wyatt' smiled in a way that he rarely let show, with an aura that he knew much more than he was supposed to. "No you didn't."

The crew and the stage and everything began to slowly disappear, leaving House and 'Wyatt' alone in a grey empty space. House turned and returned his smile with a sarcastic one "So this wasn't real as well."

"What is 'real' to the mind of Gregory House? Maybe it's not that much of a mystery at all m'friend."

---

House found himself in a moving wheelchair this time; the surrounding world felt like a continuous haze. He looked down to see a blanket in his lap and he looked up to see Amber's sharp expression. Obviously, both surprises were to House's disapprovement, but he unfortunately found himself unable to voice out any complaints.

Eventually, the slow rolling of the wheelchair wheels came to a stop and Amber came around to House's front and began tidying up. She straightened the blanket, fixed his arms and hair, and closed his shirt. She stopped at his face for a moment and looked into his eyes; all he could do was stare back, his gaze being the only vitality left in him.

Amber then resumed pushing his wheelchair into a dark room. She stopped in front of a window that separated them from an empty chair. They both waited until Wilson appeared to occupy the seat. He smiled politely at them.

"Hello Amber. Hello House. Thank you for visiting me today."

Amber nodded, "James."

Wilson stared at her, ignoring whatever emotions were breaking through her mask and onto her face. "I miss you."

"I know."

Wilson then turned to face House and, after what felt like hours of anticipating Wilson's regard for him in this world, Wilson simply smiled at him in, what seemed to be, the only expression he had left.

"How are you House?"

There was no answer.

"Are you doing ok?"

Still no answer.

"I miss you too."

Amber then came around with tissues and began wiping his eyes and cheeks as if routine. It was only then that House realized that he had been crying. Amber then threw the tissues into the trash and began rolling House out of the visiting room. Before they were completely out the door House heard Wilson's voice faintly through the intercom.

"I'm sorry about... you know."

He then heard the iron door slam shut and Amber talking under her breath as she shook her head. "Again with the same thing."

---

House was granted motility in the next world he was thrust in, although it came with the same restrictions he found himself accustomed to.

He found himself alone, with just his cane, standing on top of a large, unmoving windmill overlooking a plain that was covered with small generators and stray gears. There was a light breeze in the air, a comforting wind that felt liberating. It was as if time came to a stop.

He didn't know what it was or what caused it, but it was that moment that House felt the strongest that he had ever felt in his life.

---

House eventually grew tired of the ever shifting landscape of his questionable realty and decided to keep his eyes shut until he either "woke up" or went blind. After what felt like a few long hours, neither option felt very pleasurable and House decided to brace himself for whatever came next.

As he opened his eyes for the final time all he could see was a world of pure white and nothingness. The fact that bothered him the most about this reality was the feeling of familiarity that he had been there before. Shortly after those thoughts, a completely white bus that did little to stick out of the atmosphere pulled up in front of him. The doors opened automatically and House walked inside.

He was fully expecting Amber, Cuddy tied up to a stripper pole, another mysterious lady in black, or even a combination of the three all waiting on feathery pillows. It wouldn't be 72 virgins, but it would be enough for him. However, instead of having his no-longer relevant physical fantasies fulfilled, House found Wilson waiting for him at the back seat of the bus. House took a seat beside his best friend and, as he got a closer look at him, saw a slight difference in his features, a twenty-year difference.

"Well?" Wilson asked vaguely in an unmistakable bemused tone.

"Well what?"

"Did you have fun?"

House glared at him, "What was the point of all of this?"

Wilson chuckled, "There _always_ has to be a point doesn't there? What if there wasn't one?"

"Then none this was real?"

"What is 'real'?"

House's hand met his forehead and proceeded to slide down his face, "Enough of this Socraties shit," his tone reflected how exhausted he was by everything, but he no longer cared. "God, I'm tired."

"Imagine how I feel."

House opened one eye and looked over at Wilson, "Wow you're impatient, you were only waiting what, twenty years?"

"Thirty actually; glad to hear I still age about a decade too slow."

"So is this all a dream or what? Hallucination? Twilight zone? Afterlife?"

"Does that make me Rod Sterling?" Wilson grinned.

"House paused, "...Sure, why not."

Wilson looked away from House, "You don't believe in an afterlife."

"I still don't."

"I know."

"What, are you God now?"

"You know that this isn't an 'afterlife'."

"What _I_ know doesn't seem to matter much anymore."

Both House and Wilson then looked forward towards the front of the bus, looking and experiencing nothing.

"So is this it? Is it..." House hesitated before he could say the word, "...over?"

"Maybe that's something we're not supposed to know."

"Then why the hell are we here?"

"Are we really even 'here'? This place where time or even physical space don't seem to exist?"

"So what, did all of this exist? Did none of it? Am I really some mental patient locked in my brain, some award-winning actor, a dying medical researcher trapped underwater, or anything?"

"You're **House**."

"Gee thanks, tell me something I don't know."

"Maybe you _are_ losing it House. Maybe you aren't. Maybe you'll never reach fulfillment, or maybe you will. If we cannot fully understand the realities we live in is it possible to lose sight of it?"

"Please tell me I'm not going to have to spend my death with this. With _you._"

"How do you know I'm who I am? Even if I am 'Wilson' am I the Wilson you know? The one you hate? The one you can't seem to fully understand? The one you somehow came to actually have a genuine care for?"

House felt his eyes drooping and his body suddenly growing tired, he was falling sleep and losing touch with yet another reality. Wilson began gentlely rubbing his medical gown-clad back.

"If it makes you feel any better I hold none of those traits, since the only Wilson that can be any of those things only exists as one, and that's the one who lives outside of your mind."

House's eyes closed and all that was left of the world of white nothingness was a fleeting sound.

"Remember to make the most of the reality that you're in."

---

_"House; what did you see?"_

"...Nothing."


End file.
